+
EDITOR’S QUESTION
ABHIJIT DEB, HEAD OF BANKING
AND FINANCIAL SERVICES, UK AND
IRELAND, COGNIZANT
/////////////////
C
onsumers expect easy, immediate,
flexible and secure payment services
no matter where they are or what
they’re buying and whatever the payment
method. In some cases, they even want to
be rewarded for making transactions. And
the offerings of digital banks such as Monzo
and Starling are testament to the industry’s
efforts to keep up with these rapidly
evolving expectations.
The shift in the payments landscape over the
past few years has also brought a substantial
evolution in the role of payment cards. This
transformation has not only impacted the
types of cards that companies are launching
but has also affected card providers’
strategies and aspirations.
Payment networks like Visa and MasterCard
have built a massive infrastructure, also
known as ‘payment rails’, for processing
transactions globally. As purchasing trends
shift online, credit and debit cards are
increasingly being used more for their
‘rails’ than for the traditional plastic card
we use in stores. Thus, the battleground for
card providers is how to remain the default
payment option across every channel,
keeping them in the top spot in a spender’s
digital wallet.
The technological saturation of the
financial services industry has also been
met with an increasing affinity for risk
among business customers. If one bank
cannot meet their needs, customers can
leave and it has never been easier for them
to switch financial providers in a congested
market. In terms of innovation, Blockchain
is being harnessed by banks and technology
vendors as a prime enabler of an instant
B2B payments infrastructure.
Most notably, industry players realise that
the methods that can derive benefits today
are largely based on a better understanding
www.intelligentcio.com
of the value of payment data. While data
has mostly been used to create a hyper-
personalised customer experience for
consumers, it is increasingly being harnessed
in services to businesses even outside the
financial services sector, with companies
such as Google recently purchasing
Mastercard credit card information to track
users’ spending to create an additional
revenue stream.
Adopting innovations such as automation
means that banks and card providers can
help their commercial customers transform
payments into a process that can add
real value and allow the integration of
additional services. By making financial
reporting much easier, organisations can
glean better insights into data showing
purchasing trends among their customer
base. The emergence of Machine Learning
and self-learning systems will make
this process much more efficient, even
incorporating features like automated
financial advice or fraud detection to
become commonplace.
INTELLIGENTCIO
33